


of funereal flowers and misleading afflictions

by silvery_sunset



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Feelings Realization, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Introspection, M/M, Sad Ending, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:28:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26147203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silvery_sunset/pseuds/silvery_sunset
Summary: Hakuba Gao mourns a loss he never had, to begin with
Relationships: Hakuba Gao/Hoshiumi Kourai, Hirugami Sachirou/Hoshiumi Kourai
Comments: 13
Kudos: 30





	of funereal flowers and misleading afflictions

**Author's Note:**

> This, this was supposed to be a hiruhoshi fanfic but I became obsessed. To all Gao fans out there, I am sorry. 
> 
> I dedicate this fic to everyone who saw me yelling about it on Twitter and to hiruhoshi discord server that gave me the initial idea. 
> 
> I like to think that this story proves to me and to everyone who has seen how completely insane I am when it comes to these characters specifically, that spite is the best motivation one can have. 
> 
> Also I'd like to thank everyone who took part in the hoshigao week you're all amazing and crazy talented and I probably cried of happiness twice seeing all the works for it. 
> 
> This story was unbeta'd on its majority, forgive minor grammar mistakes, please.
> 
> If you read these notes, well, I hope you like this story!

The final whistle rang inside Gao's ears. A stunning silence fell upon Tokyo's metropolitan stadium center court. As if the world started to turn into a standing still photograph, it was hard to believe. 

Kourai's last block-out flew beautifully over the blockers, knife-sharp into the thin air. He barely could hear the faint sound of his own ragged breath over the choking silence.

It starts landing. A silent motto echoed in his mouth, in the mouths of every single one of his five teammates in court. Please land in. 

Fractions of seconds flash before their eyes. The ball bounces on the floor, the back referee's flag moves. 

Out! Screams the captain of their opponents along with the whistle. 

Kourai lands on his feet, eyes wide, fixated on the ball rolling to the back of the court. Gao himself finds it difficult to stop looking. They were so close. 

His breathing is still shallow as he places his hands over his thighs in a try to raise on his feet to stand up and greet the winners with the protocol handshake. 

It's over. It's all over. It's the echo he hears, merging with the pulse of his blood inside his ears. 

It's weird. In the middle of what seconds ago was a battlefield of spike against block, and serve versus receive… it's silent and still. Feels like a fever dream. Maybe it is and he ate something that wasn't that good last night. 

"Hey, Gao" the voice was muffled by his own thoughts. Defeat wasn't unknown for him, playing for two years in the team got him to meet it closely, but it has never been this bitter, metallic sour taste in his mouth, the taste of the pumping noise he hears vibrating through his eardrums. But it wasn't only that.

The voice comes back. Gao ignores. Until he feels it. 

A stinging pain spread on his lower back, all in a small spot. It pulled him out of the trance, he was about to open his mouth to protest.

"Quit sulking." It was Kourai's voice. Now distinct and clear, resonating in the air. The boy nodded in the direction of the net. Taking some time to process the given information, Gao assented and followed after, watching his teammate's back from afar.

His back stings. He doesn't know if it's the damn strong slap he just got on his back, if it's the feeling that his legs will give out at any time, if it's the sole devastating and soul-crushing emptiness of defeat slowly sinking in. 

He looks up, eyes squinting at the light coming from the ceiling of the gymnasium. 

He hated to admit it, but it was true. He takes a deep breath and stands up, striding to the line of players on their side of the net. 

He snorts to himself. Quit sulking, there's still a long path ahead. He knows it himself. 

Kourai knows it too. 

"Damn you, Kourai." He muttered, fighting back a smile, shaking the hand of the libero across the volleyball net, the last one of the other team's line-up.

\--

Inside the locker room, far from the squeaks of the sneakers on the floor and the noises of the ball, the inevitable realization hit like a block of lead on their heads. 

Silently, the members of Kamomedai High school volleyball club were left to their own, to absorb it all themselves. Coach Murphy would give them a little speech on the following day, they knew. Suwa-san didn't need to reassure anything, his smile towards the second years. To Gao himself. It tells them everything they need to know. 

It's another of the many hardships they'd encounter. In the silence of their thoughts, they'd adapt. 

And it's in the silence of his own thoughts that Gao feels it. The pain on his back should probably be gone, but it's engraved in the shape of a buzz that hums under his skin. His heartbeat is steady but his thoughts roll over and over inside his mind. His body ached but…

But he wanted to do it again. It was fun. He knows Kourai feels it as well. 

Kourai. 

He looks up to Kourai who was leaning his forehead against the cold metal of the locker, his hair dampened by the sweat and the towel that fell on it. Unlike what it seemed, he's not processing the defeat.

He thinks Kourai is planning his way ahead. Maybe everyone else in the room could see it too. 

Kourai was an unstoppable force through and through. An unstoppable force capable of propelling the heaviest, tallest and most stubborn mountains further by simple influence. Cunning and challenging, he had it in him so naturally. 

But all forces need reaction, a contrast, the immovable object to give them a perfect balance, a physics-wise perfect pair even. 

The ever-calm, stable and unwavering wall that stood tall besides the wrecking raw power. Hirugami Sachirou was always there, conveniently. Now, he stood by Kourai's side, taking things from the locker and placing them inside his bag, the shuffling being the only noise that filled the room.

Gao watched Sachirou's eyes look up and down on Kourai when he turned to his side. Without hesitating, a single hand presses itself on the small, narrow shoulder. Kourai fluttered his eyelids open, releasing a breath that seemed to refresh his entire body. Tense shoulders relaxed under the grip. 

When Sachirou's gaze left Kourai, Gao looked away. 

Sachirou whispers to his side. To try to hear the words feels like the disturbance of an important and intimate moment, for some reason. 

Gao keeps looking away, he stares at the tile floor with a towel on his shoulders, focused on the shuffling and shifting noises in the background, the eventual squeak of the hinges from people leaving the room to their bus to get back to the hotel. He fills his head to muffle the thoughts, the sheer childish curiosity. 

When Kourai turns to Sachirou and spares him a small smile, Gao's throat feels funny. Ticklish even. He drinks the rest of his water bottle in one chug and leaves the locker room with Sachirou and Kourai on their own.

The tickle in his throat persists. It persists when Suwa-san passes his captain title to Kourai and he accepts it with a serious stern glare and smile that could ignite flames into anyone who could be looking.

When Kourai asks Sachirou to be his vice captain is a pleading voice, hesitant gaze, unnaturally fidgety.

It persists when Kourai gives his first speech to the team, and Gao, as a third year as well, is standing on his side just like the others, watching him go from his slightly intimidating and aggressive self to the younger ones that he previously showed to a dependable, reliable and strong upperclassman. 

It was irritating. Infuriating even. He sighs defeated on his bed after the end of another practice, asking himself why. 

Why can't he tear his eyes away from Kourai?

\--

On that night, Kourai and Sachirou left practice earlier to talk, leaving Nozawa and Gao to clean the gym. Gao got out earlier after Nozawa offered to finish things up. 

Autumn was finally ending, the sky was bright orange and pink fading with the sun, hidden behind the mountains of the city. 

Leaning against a lamppost, he checked some texts from his mother before walking back home for dinner. 

He left his mind drift away as he walked slowly, lulled by the faint sound of music in his earphones. He's been doing this a lot lately. In his mind, flashes of the last two months passed briefly as he pondered the decision he made to himself after their defeat at Spring tournament. Of challenging looks and small smiles, casual touches and low laughter.

The sting on his back. It frizzled like a static shock.

His mouth was dry, his throat ached. 

Taking another deep breath, Gao shook the thoughts off and strided back in the direction of his home, smelling the scent of warm dinner coming from the door outside. 

Like a switch turned off, the sting was gone. 

\--

The tickles turned into dryness, the dryness progressed to coughs. Heavy, painful coughs end up into…

Petals?

Gao stares at the white petals that stuck to the wet porcelain of the bathroom sink. He frowned and took one in his hand. It was wet and soft, white and oval shaped, elongated, like a small feather. 

The sound of his mother's voice calling him to go have breakfast was all it took for him to finish brushing his teeth and throw the three petals into the toilet, flushing them away. 

They left a sour taste in his mouth that took away his hunger. He told his parents it was okay, he'd eat later. 

Right now, face to face to the explanation for the absurdness that he woke up to by multitudes of articles he found in the internet, trying miserably to hide from the school's librarian before she finds out he's ditching his first class, he doesn't think he will be able to eat anything for the next days. 

Hanahaki disease, said the title in bold letters. 

A result of unrequited love for someone

Love. Love, love, love. 

Hearing footsteps inside the room, he darts out as fast as he can through the other door and hurries his way into his classroom, giving a shitty excuse to his teacher. He wouldn't believe him anyway. 

Pretending to take notes into the incoming test's subject, Gao feels it once again. Ragged breath and pumping blood flooding his ears as the world sits still, the four letter word flashing in his mind. 

He had many, way too many questions to begin with and the more they aroused the tighter his throat felt. The familiar tickles rose to the back of his mouth and he could already feel it, bitter taste of flowers against his tongue. 

He coughs into his hand, hoping no one would notice the now five white petals that he had hidden in his fist. 

Resting his chin on the other hand that elbowed the desk, Gao lets out a sigh. The air probably shouldn't burn to pass through one's windpipe but it did and he liked to pretend it doesn't worry him and it'll be okay. 

With the sigh that leaves his lips he mutters questions to whoever could answer it to him in the heights of the sky.

\--

Volleyball club didn't have practice today. It made things better for him, it'd be awkward to stop every half an hour for him to dart out to the bathroom to cough these stupid flowers into the nearest toilet he could find. 

How would he even explain it to begin with? 

Tonight, sitting in front of the computer in his house's improvised office when everyone else is sleeping, he bites his lip in an insane effort to keep the noise down while the articles on the internet seem to like to make his life difficult. 

According to people who claim to have started coughing flowers too, he does not have too much of a choice variety. 

Confess to the one you love and have the chance be corresponded

A lucky strike, he thought, a desperate attempt to keep yourself with the last damage as possible. Was there anyone who's had their own happy ending? If it is unrequited, how does one make someone fall in love with them? Don't they feel ashamed of such a pitiful state to find themselves in?

And, in a last resort case, he chose confessing…

Who could it be?

Running a hand through his hair in a try to stay awake, he skimmed through the rest of the article and the witnesses and hopeful messages for victims of Hanahaki and quickly got tired of it. On the other tab, the click of the first website brought a little more reasonable solution. 

Get surgical removal of the stems and lose the ability to ever love again

The last option had a big amount of links to other websites he skimmed through, they detailed the surgery procedure. Living in a small city inside a countryside prefecture, it wasn't that much surprising that he's never heard about the damn flower cough thing before, the last medical registers of it were outdated and it felt like he was burying himself on useless information.

Why did it have to be him? 

Still on a fruitless search, Gao tried to adapt to what his idiotic body was doing to him, balancing it between keeping it a secret for as much time as he could and trying to figure out how to get rid of it with no controversial surgery. It's been going all too well for the first few weeks. 

Except it's not and he wants to break something out of pure unhinged frustration. 

\--

Practice feels like a natural fertilizer to the damn plant growing inside of him. Every stretch, run-up and block feels ten times heavier on his body. Sachirou and Nozawa call him out and he can't even apologize, his voice hitches from how tight his pharynx feels, blocking all the air. 

He locks himself in the restroom for a while. It's not normal anymore. Gagging, he can feel not only a few tiny petals slide from throat to his mouth,

But an entire flower, a crown of small feathery white petals. 

It floats on the toilet water, as if welcoming him. 

The itches on his throat stop and are replaced by a burning and stinging he can't describe quite well. Like spending a day eating dry plain food. Gao feels like choking again when he recognizes the flower. 

His mother took a bouquet of them to a friend once. In a funeral. 

Flushing it away, Gao breathes in, taking in the fresh air in what seemed to be the end of the flower clusterfuck. 

Someone bangs impatiently on the restroom's door. 

"Gao! Get the hell out of the restroom we're almost done with practice!" 

His windpipe tightens. The bangs on the door get louder. 

Before the taste comes back, he swallows it in and unlocks the door, almost tripping on Kourai who seemed to be about to try to break it down. 

Kourai graciously balances himself back on his feet, crosses his arms and arches an eyebrow to him. 

Gao can't help but think it's a perfect captain pose. And that his attempt to intimidate is admittedly adorable. 

He gags a little on something before nodding and apologizing, making Hoshiumi Kourai beam with satisfaction to be able to lecture him. Gao muffled laughter and flowers by biting his lip. 

Practice is over and they part ways home. 

At home, he asks his mother about the name of the flowers in that bouquet. 

The name that takes him three tries to type into the search bar of the computer. 

Chrysanthemums

\--

In the western hemisphere, the white chrysanthemums are a symbol of devoted love, joy and cheerfulness. Nevertheless, the meaning shifts in the eastern side of the globe, bringing with its beautiful and simple appearance the pain of loving someone who's no longer near. Grief, lamentation and the arrival of adversity.

Gao replayed the words from the article and the book he had found that morning in the school library in his head. He'd thought it was very weird to have a book on flower language in a place with a bunch of high school students but it couldn't be more useful. There had to be someone behind the reason he was coughing the white feathery flower and he was going to find out. 

Tapping his pencil against a notebook, he tries to list the evidence of what the identity of his so-called unrequited love could be. 

It's tiring and complicated. His head aches from trying to sort all that stuff out and getting nowhere after almost two hours of recollecting the whole start of the year. It wasn't like they had a cute new transfer student or if anyone has confessed to him since then. 

He doesn't even know what the sensation of having fallen in love is supposed to feel like. Why was this thing so hard? 

He decided to open the window of the room to let a bit of air enter the place. The autumn wind blows in, cold and swift, making the fabric of the curtains wave and turning the pages of the notebook lying abandoned on the desk. 

Gao put his head out and let the faint whistle fill his ears. No whispers of meanings of dumb flowers, no pumping blood desperately flowing through his body, no muffled voices. 

He closes his eyes slowly, feeling the breeze on his face, and thinks. 

What is love after all?

The wind twirls and twists inside his room, shakes some things here and there and plays around with anything it can find, breaking the silence with the soft noise of something Gao didn't care about now hitting the floor. 

It refuses to answer him. He knows it's am idiotic thing to think, but if love could make him cough flowers, what is the reasonable answer to make him stop?

The wind's whispers don't tell him any story or advice, instead, they play a soft melody traveling from inside to outside, choosing to leave Gao there, to look for his own answers. 

He closes the window and checks the marked page on the notebook. Still blank. 

His throat is still scratchy and stingy from the incident from earlier, but Gao can feel the subtle, small feeling of a light touch of a silky, smooth thing. 

It hurts a little. He coughs it out on his palm. Another petal of chrysanthemum.

\--  
"You're weird." 

Says the guy who waited for everyone to leave practice to talk to him in private and locked both of them in the club room. 

"What do you mean, Sachirou?" 

Sachirou takes a seat on the floor and so does he, wincing at the cold locker he tries to lean against. 

"If you're not doing fine the team's performance is affected and I think you know that pretty well." 

"Why are you the one having this talk to me?" 

Sachirou arched eyebrows at him as if he's just uttered the dumbest statement of the year. 

"I don't think you and Kourai would be able to talk like this without doing something stupid and then the state of team would be affected for real."

Gao crossed his arms. "You think I can't have a civilized conversation with him?" 

"I know you two can't be left alone in the same room without ending up breaking something. And you've been weird with me, too. The hell is wrong with you?" 

Gao recalls his last weeks of practice. His walk to the convenience store to buy popsicles and the last thing he'd had for dinner. 

And how the more he's been watching Sachirou and Kourai in practice the more annoying they become, the more his pharynx itches. 

"I'm okay"

"You're not. It's weird to see you so quiet and pissed off in practice." Sachirou's voice softens a little and it reminds him too much of the gentle and amused way he talks to their captain. 

"I'm fine, Sachirou." 

It was going to pass. It needed to. 

"I hope you get this figured out soon or else I'll have to ask Kourai to actually talk to you. No one wants to see that" It was so easy for him to say it, Kourai and him are not that bad with each other, god, they were on the same damn team!

"I'll be okay, no need to worry." And he waited for Sachirou to open the lock, rolling his eyes when leaving. 

Who was him to say what Gao and Kourai could and couldn't do? 

It's when he's about to sleep, when another wave of petals leaves his body and scratches his breathing engine, that a single word comes to his mind. 

Jealousy

\--

It lingers in his mind and worsens it. No, no and no. 

He thinks he is going insane. It's probably true. His head throbs when he tries to focus on practice now, since he hasn't been getting any sleep lately because he can't stop thinking about it. He's a mess of confused thoughts, raspy voice and petals all over the place. 

Every time his train of thought travels through the possibilities of the causes of his demise he can only shake the obvious truth away. He can't think anymore and the more he does it, the more they come. In buttons, petals, maybe futurely he'd have full blown flowers. He can't wait to have stems, they'd look great in a bouquet! 

Hitting his head against his pillow one more time, watching spring break into the heat of summer and volleyball practices change into a preparatory regimen for the incoming interhigh, the idiotic plant inside him seemed to take the hint. It hurt just the right amount to remind him it was there. 

Lightheadedness hits after practice every time. He's grown used to it, in a way where he can act normally, besides the fact that he carries a small tissue in his pockets every time the coughs come, he can hide it pretty well. 

Unless he's in front of Kourai. 

Like a sunflower follows sunlight, the chrysanthemums in his throat are pulled by Kourai's voice, his presence, a mere thought of him. Not that Gao kept him in his thoughts that much. 

The petals bloom in his mouth when he watches Kourai play when he's on the bench. He swallows it all down, cursing them in his mind. Stop, stop, stop. 

Love is misleading affliction that comes from wishing for locked gazes and fingers brushing to make one's heart skip a beat, even for slightest and most insignificant second. 

He hates it. Every single part of it. 

Love is wishing. Wanting. Desiring unconditionally. Love is a trick of the mind to let you find what you think we'll make you Fuller of give a meaning to your path. 

An illusion. 

He shakes it away. The flowers never leave.They feed into his sick mix of drifting thoughts of sleepless nights and paranoia to hide from it. 

To hide from what love is to him, Hakuba Gao. 

The stems thicken and spread inside his chest and let him cough the first blooming white flower on that one day, right after their defeat on summer interhigh. 

For Hakuba Gao, love takes form in the sight of the funereal flowers and lost-less mourning. 

Love takes form into Hoshiumi Kourai. 

And it ignites a fire inside him. 

Kourai shines in their team like a star. A walking contradiction that wrecks with all unfairness and obstacles he meets through volleyball. In the court, Kourai is an outstanding presence to be recognized. To be beaten. To be reached. 

The unstoppable force pulls him in like a magnet and he finds himself reluctantly mesmerized. He wants to look away from the spectacle Kourai offers when he's in the air, all eyes on him and just him, who slams the ball into the opposite court and raises his fist, feeding on the cheers. 

He's far from Gao, light-years away in all ways possible and he hates to admit it so much. He hates to admit to himself that he knows Kourai trusts him for emergency sets and gives him the ball in a position that feels right on his hand, it stings and burns. 

Kourai is heat. He sets him ablaze and asks him to keep up, the sight of his back tempting Gao to try, for once, to reach the stars. It's a magnetic pull. It makes his mind fuzzy and focused at the same time and fills him with a pleasurable adrenaline that reminds him of the very end of a match and that Gao finds himself enjoying.

And when his eyes dart to the figure of the growing boy in front of him, the sight of narrow and small shoulders that carried so much on them, the blazing hot gaze shimmering in pride, the grin he displayed so much more since the year started, Gao can't help but want more. 

It's a natural consequence, he tells himself. There was no way other people didn't feel it. How does one look at the stars and be satisfied with admiring them from afar? 

It's supposed to be, until it's not. Until the grin Kourai displays seems to need to be melted into a kiss, until his small frame starts to fit into his arms in Gao's imagination. 

Until his wish to touch the starry sky translates into the flowers of grief because he's too much of a human to try it.

It annoys him to no end and it needs to be gone. He shakes the thoughts away and tries to keep his life going. 

The chrysanthemums refuse to and remind him, just like the white hot fire crackling under his skin puking him towards the star's gravity pull. Maybe Kourai was a black hole, imponent and capable of making galaxies like Gao disappear consuming them whole.

Regardless of what Kourai could be or become, Gao pulled himself towards and away from. A toggle war of spilled petals over his bedsheets, breathless and briefly painful seconds, traveling up his throat inside a stall in the school's restroom. 

The last time he had checked, the chrysanthemums were no longer the immaculate white. 

The one he hid in hands was painted red, droplets of the red fluid still sliding over them. 

He flushed them all away, in the toilet and with the water he chugged down before every practice, holding it all inside. 

Gao pretends he doesn't notice how, by the end of the year, it's not only petals he coughs, but also blown flowers that filled his mouth.

\--

It all comes in together at the verge of summer, a storm coming with the power of a torrential downpour keeping three members of the volleyball club busy preparing to leave the gym after realizing they took too long on the cleaning duties. 

After finishing to mop the court Gao picked his things out of the locker and sneaked a peek from the small crack between the tippers. 

The boys couldn't notice the rain from the court, too focused on the matches and the plans to classify for the national interhigh tournament announced by their captain and vice-captain. Lightning struck with a loud crackly noise that made his ears ring. 

"I don't think we can go back any time soon." Sachirou stated, wincing at the thunders clapping outside. 

Kourai followed in right after him, frowning at the windows. "I'm gonna be late for dinner." He pouted.

"I'm sure your mother will understand." Sachirou sat on the bench gathering his own things from his locker. "She wouldn't want you to run around this storm and catch a cold, right?" 

"If you catch a cold you'd be out of practice for some days…" Gao continued. "Why don't you go?" His lips stretched into a smirk. 

"Nice try, beanpole, but I'm not going to let you have it that easy." Kourai smirked back, stepping up to meet him eye on eye. 

"It was just a suggestion." Gao shrugged. 

"You two can't give it a rest?" Sachirou laughed, placing his bag's strap over his shoulder." We're gonna be stuck here for some time. I don't want to get out of looking for rehab." 

"Sachirou you're so dramatic." Kourai sang, sparing a glance at Sachirou, his smirk relaxing into a smaller smile that melted into a giggle.

"You're the last one that can tell me that, Kourai-kun." 

Sachirou's voice was so different from what he usually heard. It was always calm and almost soft to hear, but that last sentence, even from the distance Gao was from the two, it sounded different. 

Just like the smaller, more contained and attentive smile on Kourai's face felt different. 

Gao's pharynx tightened once. He swallowed the air, feeling the familiar taste in the depths of his esophagus. 

Sachirou's voice towards Kourai was the one of a guy who has met him for a while. They have been friends since middle school, it was understandable. It was a soft tune, to the point where he could know Sachirou was smiling when he talked. 

Fondness filled it, a caring and delicate warmth directed to one person and one person only. 

"Gao, wanna head to the gym? It's getting chilly in here." Sachirou asked. He nodded, following him behind Kourai. 

The tune has shifted back to its normal, barely noticeable but it lost the smile quickly. 

They sat at the bench outside the court, Kourai in the middle of him and Sachirou, uncharacteristically silent and not his usual restless post practice self. On a normal day they'd probably start practicing serves and receives or just spiking practice to blow steam off. 

Kourai gulped on his water bottle, leaning his weight on his hands that rested on each side of his legs. He took a breath in before starting to talk. Gao could see from where he stood, the green-ish irises shined under the light of their gym. 

It itched inside his neck. 

"We're gonna go to interhigh. Ichibayashi owes us a rematch."

"It's a surprise to see you mention them, I thought your biggest rival in the moment was the shrimpy blocker, Karasuno's 10." Gao asked, swallowing the bitter taste down once again.

"Right, still waiting for him, Kourai-kun?"

Kourai stood on his feet and looked down to them with a vibrant smile on his face. "Of course." He started. "I'll throw every opponent on the floor to get to play with Hinata Shouyou again." 

"What are you, a manga protagonist?" Sachirou giggled. 

"That believes he's overpowered, to make it worse!" Gao finished, watching Kourai turn on his heel and growl. 

"You two know nothing about this, do you?" Kourai sighed. "You're too detached to find a rival, Sachirou."

"Maybe it's for the best." Sachirou smiled and shrugged, but his eyes were glaring daggers at Kourai. 

"I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that… scary."

"As if you can say anything, Gao!" Kourai turned to him. "You still need to catch up with everyone else, it's not that easy!" He pushed his shoulder lightly while Sachirou laughed. 

"I'm not slacking! I'm gonna beat your ass when we're pros, just you wait, Kourai." Gao leaned closer, slouching a little to look into Kourai's eyes.

"Oh, yes, I will wait." He stared back.

Big, shiny olive green eyes stared into his, so fixated and deep Gao could feel it traveling through his head and unraveling his mind. 

In a motion quick enough to be a spasm, he felt his throat constricting, immediately taking a hand over his mouth and turning to the other side. Burning and itching mixed into his mouth as he tried to cough it all. 

There it was, a handful of small white petals stuck to the palm of his hand. 

"You okay there?" Sachirou asked, placing a hand on his shoulder. Shoving the hand holding the flower petals inside his jacket pocket, Gao hoped the pain didn't strain his voice when he answered. 

"I'm fine, don't worry." 

"And you were talking about me catching a cold!" Kourai protested. "Don't you dare to get sick before a tournament." He lowered his voice, offering Gao his own water bottle. 

Gao blinked twice and felt his face heat up ridiculously.

"I'll be okay, no need to worry, I said it." He looked away and prayed for his face to be a normal color.

Kourai seemed satisfied with his answer and got back to his seat. 

Sachirou pointed out that the rain stopped and they parted ways after walking together to the school's exit. 

The flowers haven't stopped. They tightened inside his chest, blocking his breath. Gao panted, leaning against a wall of a store that was closed at that time. The thunder echoing from the sky warned him to hurry up. 

They invaded his taste buds, Sachirou's voice was fond and soft. As if it wanted to sound the most sweet and delicate. A whisper of a feeling Gao refused to name.

Just like the feeling that flowed through his entire body, as if it flowed within his own blood, a feeling triggered by one gaze and one smile that set his entire body into battle mode and made his heart rush. 

Only for one person. 

One person capable of making flowers bloom inside his lungs, slowly taking over his breath and stealing his peace at night. 

Gao coughed it all out, feeling oxygen return to his aching lungs.

In the palm of his hand, once again, an entire white chrysanthemum rested. He smashed it in his fist and threw it on the trash, shaking his head to clear his own mind. 

It's not that. It couldn't be. It'd never be. 

Why Kourai?

He can't understand. 

The flames inside rise hotter and higher. The red and orange filling his vision. 

Anger.

\--

Gao bangs his room's door closed. His breath is ragged and this time there's no chrysanthemum blocking his windpipe. His shoulders hurt from the tension, just his hands do, balled into fists, white-knucled grip into his own palms, nails digging into the flesh. 

This can't be happening

It was impossible. Everything that has been going on had to be some kind of fever dream he hasn't woken up to since the start of the year. Maybe he had died and this was hell, god, maybe he had done something terrible and the heavenly authorities decided to give him the worst punishment they could find. 

His heart pumped blood and the noise echoed into his head. He wanted to bang his dumb head against a wall and tell it to reconsider it. Tell it to stop being dumb and ask it why with all the billions of humans that are alive on the planet at the moment, he had to fall in love with the one person that hated him. 

Hating could be a hyperbole, Gao could have no idea of what he was saying, Korai could be a considerate human being at times. He could be empathetic and passionate, admirable. Even kind and sweet and so insanely cute—

He darts into the bathroom and sprays cold water into his face, looking at his reflection in the mirror. He looks like he has been bitten by a zombie or has been hiding from an assassin organization that was trying to hunt him for stealing an important top secret archive. Both explanations would sound sless ridiculous than the truth. 

The flowers on the bathroom sink greeted him hello. He was going to kill someone today. 

After taking a shower and drinking several glasses of water to the point of increasing the ratio of the thing in his body, Gao wants an ultimatum. 

He browses in the office computer in fear of being found once again, praying silently to the screen that the answers are exactly what he needs and hopes for. 

What are the consequences of Hanahaki removal surgery?

\--

It's not exactly an unreasonable and unthought try. 

Lose the ability to love ever again

It was a pondering of whether it was worth or not. He had time to wait. No one needed to know about it and he could only try the thing when he's older than 20, but losing the ability to love was a thing that needed time to decide.

It's snowing now and maybe he could see the end of it before the drastical measures act up. In the end of his school year, although his life has become an absolute mess, he's thankful. For the good memories, the good games and his newfound love for volleyball he wants to explore further. 

He wants to keep going. That's why he considers it, because he hates how he can't control it and how risky it was for the disease to have room to spread.

The outcomes are unknown and they are terrifying.

\--

The text he receives on the snowy new year's morning wrecks the air out of his lungs, Hanahaki or not.

Nozawa and Bessho told me to invite you  
We're going to a shrine to pray for our team in Spring Tournament  
Not that we need any of that  
Sachirou didn't want to text ur dumbass

Kourai's voice could almost be heard in the back of his mind. Gao bites the smile threatening to make its way on his face and rolls his eyes, sending a reply. 

He had a possibility to consider yet. A deal to sign with the devil of love. 

And the reality of his decision slaps his face when he finds himself squeezed inside the minivan driven by Kourai's mother, seated between Sachirou and Kourai, who, just like his mom, was more than pleased to the third years to a trip to one of the city's lakes after passing by the shrine. 

Gao swallows thin, flowerless saliva that almost makes him choke in a way he hasn't done in a while. 

When Hoshiumi-san leaves them alone with a bright blinding smile that probably ran in the family's blood, Gao follows after everyone and watches the painted white view, peaceful and calm. 

It's been some time since he had felt this calm. Maybe he could forget all this love thing after all. 

"How many coins can I throw in there? Is there a limit of wishes the gods receive?"

"Kourai you're not thinking of throwing of these in there, are you?"

"Kourai-kun that's a dumb question, how could gods get overworked?" 

Or maybe not because his idiotic mind hates him and the Hanahaki disease gives him a rest, as if amused with his struggle. 

"I bet I can get more coins in there than you!" 

"Oh really?" No, he just wanted to have Kourai's eyes on his. 

"Of course" and that ever-confident smile, only for him. 

Before they do something stupid, Sachirou and Nozawa pull them by the collars out of the shrine, wincing at the glares from the elderly couples that were waiting for their turn. All the way back was noisy, Kourai and him giving each other elaborate plans to get the most insane amount of coins to get unlimited wishes to the gods. Hoshiumi-san asked about their ideas with an amused tune in her voice from the driver's seat. Sachirou whined about having an incoming headache.

Laughter filled the vehicle more pleasant than any song on the radio, accompanying their way into the snow covered road until the van stopped. 

When the boys left the car, the giggles became awes and gasps. It was a gorgeous place, as if taken out of some fairytales book and drawn by hand. The mountains that cornered their prefecture were covered by it and the lake was frozen by the cold. 

"You wanna walk around, take some pictures?" Hoshiumi-san suggested, pulling out a camera from the car. Kourai tried to protest but Sachirou stopped him with an arm before nodding and they all went along. 

After several minutes trying to frame Kourai inside a group picture, they got to walk around the border of the lake, Gao focused on the feeling the cold wind of the winter and his breath melting into hot puffs of air. 

"You've been weird." His eyes widen at the familiar question. Damn it, Kourai. 

"Why are you following me?" He buried his hands into his pockets. He could feel Kourai's eyes stare holes into the back of his neck until he strides to walk side by side to Gao. 

"You're the one in my way. And don't change the topic!" he bit back. 

Gao rolled his eyes and stopped, ignoring the bitterness on his tongue. Kourai stopped walking too and, for minutes that dragged on for forever, their eyes watched the crystal clear lake and the pure white view. 

Gao gulped. "Can I ask you something?"

"You just did."

"Shut up."

"Thought you were gonna ask me a thing"

Kourai was so fucking stupid and Gao just wanted to kiss him quiet and simultaneously throw him into the frozen lake as hard as he could and tell at him about dead chrysanthemums in his trash bin and thoughts he's been pushing into the furthest corners of his mind and losing the ability to feel the horrible mess of fuzzy butterflies in his stomach and annoying buzzes in his head ever again.

"Do you ever get scared of stuff?" But he doesn't. Kourai said he can't change the topic, of course he would.

Kourai squinted at him and pierced through his soul again, before frowning a little and shrugging. He sighed before talking, his words materializing into steam in the air. 

"Everyone does. Why?"

Gao's eyes were glued to the floor, he dragged his foot across it to mess around with the snow.

"If you're talking about what you're doing after we're graduated, you're just being an idiot again." 

"Eh?" 

"You told me you'd catch up didn't you?" 

He blinks several times. It's something he can only accept silently. Kourai doesn't need to know, after all. Gao doesn't think he would ever be able to tell him, not with the way that simple thought invades his throat with the tickle of petals under his tongue. 

"And I will " 

"I wanna see you try." He snorted. And it's genuine and his laugh rings into Gao's ears, Kourai's smile is permanent on his face as he glares upon the lake again. 

He doesn't know the reason of the pang in his chest anymore and it doesn't matter.

Can't he make Kourai smile like that, for him and him only?

\--

Time feels like a refreshing breeze to the face. Graduation comes and he leaves the flowers there. No more coughs or nights awake. Pursuing professional volleyball in a first division team and the overall pressure of the absurdness that is adulthood cleanse his mind and he feels like a new man. 

With his new admission to the Falcons, he meets new teammates and has more and more to occupy his head with. Ojiro-san was always a nice person to talk to and one of the first ones in the team to take the newbie under his wing. 

It felt great again, the rush of a volleyball match in his mind and body and the sweet adrenaline of the run for the last point. Gao thinks he's never felt so overwhelmingly good before. It's a living lucid dream turned into palpable bruise marks on his arms and the slams of spikes into the floor. 

And in his fantasy of balls flying across the sky and victories to colelct he's yet to know, he's swept off his own carpet by news of the Schweiden Adlers' lastest admission. 

The small opposite hitter that could do it all and more, the spiker that could make all blockers in a 100 meter radius groan in anger from his sheer presence. 

In the first game of the new season of the V-league, he faces the man wearing the jersey with the number 16 on it. The little giant, Hoshiumi Kourai.

He feels a need to straighten his back and look up the whole game, to tighten his grip in the hand that shakes his across the net right before they go to their positions, to wait for the ball even more eagerly at every serve and every set.

He can't suppress his grin at Kourai's block-outs, neither his laugh when he finally gets to stuff the flying spiker on the floor a few times. It's fun. 

Gao loves volleyball, he learned to love the strain it brings to his body, every scar and every bruise. Hoshiumi Kourai taught him in the most unconventional and unique way possible, because that's what he was. Unlike anything or anyone else. 

Defeat weighs on his thighs when he repeats the motto stuck in his mind whenever the matches come to an end. This time, he prays for the ball to be connected. 

Don't end it here. 

It's bittersweet and tiring. When they're face to face again, as they have been many times in game, minutes ago, Kourai scoops under it and does it again. 

A stinging, throbbing slap on his back. He wants to scowl and complain that's it's way harder this time but his mouth stops when his eyes go back to Kourai. 

He's smiling, a star shining brighter and brighter in the night sky that could be spotted from anywhere in the planet. He forces his way into being noticed doing what he's always done. 

Kourai is the same as ever, and completely different at the same time. He saw it on the court, he saw it in the way his shoulders, stronger and broader than they were before, carry a team and his dream on his back. Confidently, unhinged and free. 

There he was, the unstoppable force. 

They talk little after the game, but Gao knows it. He's no soulmate, no destined rival, no coincidence that swayed inside Kourai's path in unknown ways and never left. 

He orbited around that star like a lost satellite, pulled by his magnetic gravitational pull. 

When he's in the locker room, adrenaline still buzzing in his nervous system, it's when he feels it, way too familiar bitterness of chrysanthemums scratching his throat. 

He coughs the petals in his towel. 

He's 21 now and knows what is the logical thing to do if he wants it gone. 

He throws the petals away and laughs to himself, ignoring the weird look Ojiro-san spares at him. 

Love is fair and unfair at the same time, it feels good for him, in an odd unexplainable way. 

He doesn't want it to end. 

\--

Kourai texts him, asking to meet in a traditional ramen place that became their high school team's traditional place to crash around and eat like crazy.

In the text, Kourai asks him to come, to talk and hang out for a while. 

Gao smiles when he replies. Volleyball has brought them closer than high school did and he risked to call what they had some kind of twisted rivalry-friendship mix along with an ever-lasting constest to see who pisses the other off the most. 

He goes, humming a melody that he'd heard in a TV ad the previous day and hasn't left his head. He arrives early to the place and takes their usual seat by the window.

He chooses the worst moment to look up to the at his right. From the inside of a badly parked car that had a tire hung on the sidewalk, a couple left. 

Hands interlocked, the smaller one pushing the taller for a quick peck on the lips before they walk into the store. Gao bites his lip and ignores the taste in his mouth as he's been doing for so, so much time. 

Sachirou and Kourai enter the place and greet him like they always do, sat in front of his like they have been doing since high school, smiled and glared at each other the same way. 

It's not a surprise in the slightest when Kourai tries to tell him something but chokes on a piece of paper too big for mouth and leaves it to Sachirou to explain, while trying to get him to breathe. 

"By the way," he started, carressing Kourai's back lightly when he finally regains his voice. "Kourai and I are dating." Sachirou stated.

He delivered it like a swift, but slow and excruciatingly painful stab in the chest at the same time. Maybe the pain was more tangible than Gao had thought because he feels like he's the one who can't breathe now, sourness spreading on his mouth. He excuses himself to go to the bathroom leaving both Sachirou and Kourai blinking confusedly, probably. 

Two blown chrysanthemums float on the toilet. He closes the lid and sits on top of it, letting the air flow inside his lungs. 

He had accepted it before. He always knew it was bound to happen and it was only a matter of time. 

Reality is harsh, cruel and wrecks him with the truth. 

He was a mere mortal today, and there was no way a mere mortal could reach the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know. Unfortunately, I know. 
> 
> If you've felt a tiny itsy bitsy bit bad for my boy Gao or if you didn't and you just liked seeing him suffer, consider giving this author kudos and comments!! They make me incredibly happy, even just a tiny "I liked this!" 
> 
> I hope you have a great day and thank you so much for reading!


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